THE HISTORY OF THE ABDERITESChristoph Martin Wieland1774trans. Henry Christmas (1861)

CHRISTOPH MARTIN WIELAND (1733-1813) was a German author and poet of primarily light and cheerful work. In 1774, he published a satire of German provincialism, Die Abderiten, eine sehr wahrscheinliche Geschichte ("The Very Probable History of the Abderites") in the form of a fictional "history" of the Thracian city of Abdera in the Greek era, known in Athens, according to Cicero, for air that induced stupidity. In this satire, Wieland discusses the Temple of Jason in Abdera, a real place, expanding humorously and greatly on a single line of Strabo from the Geography (9.14.12): "The Jasonia are evidence of the expedition of Jason: some of these memorials the sovereigns of the country restored, as Parmenio [one of Alexander's generals] restored the temple of Jason at Abdera." Below is Chapter VI, which relates the history of the temple of Jason and the problems it caused.

Chapter VI

The worship of Latona was, as Strobylus had informed Euripides, as old in Abdera as the transplantation of the Lycian colony, and the extreme simplicity which characterized the architecture of her little temple might reasonably be appealed to as a convincing proof of the fact.

However insignificant was the exterior of the shrine, the regular endowments of the priesthood were fully as unpretending. But as necessity is the mother of invention, these gentlemen had long since found out a way, by setting the superstition of the Abderites to work, to indemnify themselves for the very limited amount of their statutable incomes; and as these were clearly insufficient, they had succeeded in persuading the senate, which would never have increased their allowances by any augmentation specially devoted to that purpose, to set apart certain funds for the preservation of the holy frog-pools. It need hardly be said that the grateful and right-minded frogs left by far the larger part of such sums for the use of their conservators.

Very different were the circumstances of the temple of Jason, that renowned leader of the Argonauts, to whom in Abdera only was divine worship offered, and a place given among the greater gods.

We are not aware of any other grounds for this distinction, save that several of the oldest and richest families in Abdera traced their descent up to that hero. One of his grandsons had, as tradition asserted, settled down in that city and become the common father of several distinct lines, of which more than one were in full prosperity at the time of the present history. To honour the memory of the hero from whom they descended, they had at first consecrated a small chapel. With the progress of time this grew into a kind of open temple, which the piety of the Jasonians had gradually provided with sufficient revenues. At last, when Abdera had become, through a series of fortunate circumstances, one of the richest cities in Thrace, the families of his blood determined to build to their deified ancestor a temple whose beauty should be at once an honour to their city and a wonder to posterity.

The new temple of Jason was a glorious work, and, with its dependent buildings, offices, asylum, and residences for the priests, together with its appropriate groves and gardens, made an entire quarter of the city. The arch-priest was required by statute to be always one of the members of the oldest Jasonian family, and as he had not only considerable revenues in virtue of his office, but also a supremacy over all persons and things connected with the temple, it is easy to imagine that the chief priest of Latona did not look with an eye of indifference on all these advantages. A sort of rivalry soon established itself between these prelates; their successors kept it up jealously, and on every suitable occasion it was sure to be manifested.

The chief priest of Latona was undoubtedly the head of the Abderite clergy; only the arch-priest of Jason was not under his rule, but constituted with his dependants a separate college, which, save its acknowledgment of the laws of the city, was free from all control. The festival of Latona was the pre-eminent fast-day of the republic; but as the smallness of the temple revenues admitted but of little display, it came to pass that the feast of Jason, which was celebrated with extraordinary magnificence, was, in the eyes of the people, if not the most venerable, at least the most enjoyable, and all the reverence which they felt for Latona, and all the respect which they entertained for her priests and the holy frogs, could not prevent the arch-priests of Jason from making a greater figure and obtaining thereby a greater amount of consideration; and although the common people had probably more inclination towards the priests of Latona, yet even this was counterbalanced by the close connection existing between the arch-priest of Jason and the most aristocratic houses in the State. In short, a man in this position necessarily possessed such influence, that were he ambitious he might easily have made himself a sort of tyrant over the city.

Now, to all these hereditary causes of jealousy and rivalry between the heads of the Abderite clergy, the present incumbents, Strobylus and Agathyrsus, added a personal enmity, which was the natural result of their very different ways of thinking.

Agathyrsus was far more a man of the world than a priest—of the latter he had indeed little more than the robes; the love of pleasure was his ruling passion, for though he was not wanting in pride no one could accuse him of ambition, so long as he allowed other inclinations to overrule that feeling. He loved the arts and familiar converse with virtuosi of all kinds, and had the reputation of being one of those priests who have little belief even in their own gods. At least, it must be confessed that he was partial to a rather free joke on the holy frogs of Latona, and there were persons found willing to swear that they had heard from his own lips the declaration, "that the frogs of that goddess had long ago been changed into wretched poets and Abderite singers."

That he lived on tolerably pleasant terms with Democritus, was not a fact calculated to increase the opinion of his orthodoxy.

In short, Agathyrsus was a man of good temperament, clear head, and rather free life, a favourite with the Abderite nobility, a still greater favourite with the fair sex, and, on account of his open-handed liberality and stately Jasonian presence, almost as much a favourite with the lowest classes of the people.

Now Nature, in her most whimsical moment, had never formed a man more completely the antipodes of all this than was Strobylus. He had found by experience, as many like him have done, that a mortified countenance and a sanctimonious manner are infallible means, with the great majority of what are called religious people, of obtaining the character of a wise and pious man.

As Nature had furnished his visage with more than a reasonable amount of vinegar, it cost him very little to assume those manners which, to those who can look beneath the surface, signify nothing more than a limited understanding and an indomitable obstinacy. Without any taste for the sublime and beautiful, he was a born despiser of all the arts and sciences which develope that taste, and his hatred to philosophy was only the natural dislike of a stupid bigot towards all which was wiser and better than himself. In his decisions he was crooked and partial, in his opinions unreasonable, in controversy rude and vehement, and, whenever he believed himself to be insulted or injured, either in his own person or in that of the holy frogs of Latona, to the utmost degree vindictive. With all this he was not the less submissive, even to meanness, when he could only obtain what he desired by the help of a person whom he hated. In addition, there seemed some ground for the opinion generally held of him, that, in any matter not altogether inconsistent with his character, he might easily be brought to reason by proper doses of golden darics or philips.

From such opposite elements, especially when the many circumstances of jealousy attached to, and indeed inseparable from, their respective positions, are taken into consideration, it will not be thought strange that a mutual hatred should arise, which was restrained with difficulty, and only kept within bounds at all by a great contempt on the part of Agathyrsus, which prevented his hatred to the chief priest from reaching the limits which it otherwise would have done, and from the energy which made it impossible for Strobylus to despise the arch-priest of Jason so much as he would fain have wished.

To all this must be added one more point of contrast. Agathyrsus, by reason of his birth and social position, belonged to the aristocracy; Strobylus, notwithstanding his relations with certain senators, was a declared partisan of the democracy, and, next to the guildmaster Awl, was the very person who, by his character, weight, enthusiastic feeling, and a certain taking kind of popular eloquence, had the greatest influence with the demos.

It may easily be supposed that the affair of the ass's shadow became a more serious one, as soon as a few men, such as the principal priests of Abdera, mingled with it.

Strobylus, so long as the suit had been carried on before the ordinary tribunals, had taken no other part in it than declaring, from time to time, that he in such a case would have acted precisely as the dentist had done; but as soon as he learned through his niece, the Lady Salabanda, that Agathyrsus had made the interests of his protege, however he might appear at first to despise them, really and earnestly his own, he felt it his duty to place himself at once at the head of the opposite party, and to support the guildmaster by all the influence which he had either with the senate or with the people.

Salabanda was too much accustomed to have a hand in all public business in Abdera, to be the last to take her part in such a matter as the present. Besides her near relationship to the priest Strobylus, she had another reason to make common cause with him,—a reason not the less powerful for being kept to herself. We have mentioned on another occasion that this lady, out of mere political considerations, or, it may be, out of a little coquetry—and who shall say how far these two may not be sometimes mingled together?—thought fit always to have about her a number of willing slaves, among whom, mischievous people said, there must surely be one or another who knew what he served her for. Now the scandalous chronicle of Abdera asserted that Agathyrsus had at one time the honour to be one of these last, and, in point of fact, there were a number of circumstances which rendered such a report not altogether undeserving of attention. In fact, a very close and affectionate friendship subsisted between them when the ballerina came to Abdera, and before long Salabanda saw plainly enough that the fickle son of Jason had offered her up on the altar of his new divinity.

Agathyrsus visited her house on the same apparent footing as before, and the lady was a great deal too politic to give in her outward behaviour the least sign of change. But in her heart she nourished wrath. She did not forget what it was which had so deeply involved the archpriest in the law-suit, and kept up his enthusiasm in it; secretly she tracked all his comings and goings—all doors open and shut, all-approaches to his cabinet by day or night—till at last she found out all his intrigues with the young Sorgo, and was in a position to lay the story before the priest Strobylus. She enabled him to put the whole matter in as detestable a light as he pleased, choosing, for her own part, to use it with a view of rendering Agathyrsus ridiculous. Agathyrsus, however little it cost him for the most part to sacrifice to his pleasures all sorts of political advantages, had his moments of obstinacy—moments in which a matter wherein he was at the bottom very little interested, could stir up all his pride; and whenever this took place his vivacity usually carried him a great deal further than he would have gone had he calmly and quietly reviewed the business. The reason which had at first induced him to mix himself up with so despicable a suit, no longer existed, for the young Sorgo, notwithstanding the advice of her mother, had either not manifested sufficient discretion, or not felt sufficient indifference to continue steadfast in resisting the fascinations of so experienced a suitor as Agathyrsus.

But he was now embarked in the cause; his honour was concerned in its success. He had daily and nightly information how insolently the guildmaster and the priest with their followers discoursed about him, how they threatened, how high-handedly they hoped to carry their point, and the like; and this was more than sufficient to induce him to employ all his energies for the overthrow of enemies whom he so completely despised, and to chastise them for the very insolence of having attempted to oppose him.

Notwithstanding the cabal of the Lady Salabanda, which was not sufficiently fine-spun to be long concealed from him, he had the greater part of the senate on his side; and though his opponents left nothing untried to exasperate the people against him, yet he had partisans enough, especially in the guilds of butchers, braziers, and tanners, to be very formidable, from the power of their lungs and the strength of their arms, whenever either shouting or striking was required.

Source: Christoph Martin Wieland, The Republic of Fools: Being the History of the State and People of Abdera in Thrace, trans. Henry Christmas, vol. 2 (London: William H. Allen, 1861), 35-45.